


Discovered Treasures

by a_xmasmurder



Series: OctoJohn Adventures [1]
Category: Sherlock (TV), Sherlock Holmes & Related Fandoms
Genre: AU, Discovery, Gen, Hybrid creatures, Kid!Lock, Octo!John - Freeform, Sea, Tentacles, mythological creatures, pirate!Sherlock
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-08-17
Updated: 2013-08-17
Packaged: 2017-12-23 19:52:18
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,987
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/930414
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/a_xmasmurder/pseuds/a_xmasmurder
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Ten year old Sherlock Holmes, in his quest to become the World's Greatest Pirate Ever, sneaks off of his brother's ship in the middle of the night (FOR SCIENCE!). He discovers a hidden pool, and gets the surprise of his life.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Discovered Treasures

**Author's Note:**

> Um, yeah, I'm just gonna leave this here. *pats the fic* The Octo!John bug has bit me now, too.
> 
> It's probably not the greatest, but it is what it is. *shrugs*

Sherlock rested his little chin on the wooden hull of the ship, staring morosely into the vast blue-greens of the water far below. He didn’t understand why he couldn’t just take one of the spare rowing boats that they kept lashed to the deck in case of attack from the English or the Spanish...hell, even the French, if they were inclined to do so, could take out this sad excuse for a ship. His brother was so slow and fat and boring! Sherlock stomped his little foot and huffed.

“You’re fat, ‘Croft! Fat and ugly and stupid!”

His screamed insults only made the men surrounding him laugh and carry on with their daily chores. Sherlock wrinkled his nose at them.

“Just you see! I’m going to be a better captain than him, just you watch!” He sniffled and scowled, trying out his patented ‘Captain Holmes, Greatest Pirate Ever to Sail the Seas’ look on the shipmates and pirates of the good ship Hudson.

They ignored him.

“I’ll show them,” the ten year old muttered darkly. “I’ll show them all. I’ll come back with gold and corals and a prisoner, too!”

  
  
  
  


Later that night, when only the first mate Lestrade and the arrogant brat Victor were awake and on watch, Sherlock snuck out of his berth, fully packed and ready for a nighttime excursion to the island they were near. The sea below was calm, not a wave or a breeze to be seen or felt. He tip-toed over the wood slats as quietly as his feet would take him, and bundled everything he had with him onto the tiny boat.

“Now, to get it down into the water without alerting those idiots on watch.” He cast around for a distraction, any distraction... oh. _OH_. He pulled the homemade firecrackers he’d made three days prior out of his greatcoat pocket, lit them with a match, and threw them as hard as he could near the bow. The resulting explosion created an exciting chaos, enough so that he could unlash the boat and use the well-oiled (at least someone was doing their job the right way) winch to lower it down. Once he did that, he threw the rope ladder over the edge of the hull and climbed down, belatedly checking to make sure his little dagger and cutlass was secured tightly to his belt. With a wicked grin, he stepped down into the rowboat and took up the oars. Now, he was off to finally make a name for himself as the greatest pirate to ever live! He smothered a giggle and took off to the north, making a line to the island.

  
  
  
  


After what seemed like an eternity of rowing, Sherlock finally made it to the rocky outcrop that his stupid brother insisted was a coast. The water swirled and eddied around the formations, and little Sherlock the Pirate didn’t have any energy left to fight the current as it sucked his boat into the maze of granite and sand. He just hoped that he wouldn’t get splattered against the rocks, though he had to admit that it would make for an interesting death. One oar snapped against a submerged formation, and he cursed his bad luck with as much boyish vehemence and with as many bad words as he could summon up in his brain. Using them out loud gave his heart a thrill, but not as much as when the tide pulled the bow of his little boat beneath the brackish waters. His heart stopped for a moment, then restarted with a kick as the water spat him back out and onto a sandy shoal deep within the outcropping. All motion halted with a jolt, and he was left panting and blinking in shock as the water continued swirling and raging around him. After a moment, he noticed that he was still breathing and whole.

“Well, at least I have that.” He sighed and gathered up his satchel of scientific equipment and provisions, adjusted the belt on his slim hips, and stepped out onto the shoal, careful not to trip and fall into the treacherous waters behind him. The sand was soft and wet, sucking at his high boots and refusing to let go. He couldn’t count the times he’d pulled his foot right out of his boots, only to step carefully back into them so he could continue on. After a good fifteen minute battle, he finally made it to a safer spot. Well, he said ‘safer’, but it really wasn’t much more than wet rocks slick with algae and moss and seaweed. He knelt down and scraped the green muck up with his dagger, depositing it into three separate dishes he’d pulled out of his bag. He secured the dishes with tops and set them carefully in amongst the empty ones and wiped the blade off on his trousers, then sheathed it once more. He made his way carefully across the rock, taking care to watch his step as he rounded a corner.

“Oh, brilliant,” he breathed.

The corner of the rock face had hidden a lovely saltwater pool, full and teeming with life. Seabirds lay, sleeping and waiting for dawn to warm the air enough for them to ride the thermals and hunt the sea. He crept back until only his forehead and bright silver-blue eyes could be seen, and he observed the life around the pool. After a half-hour, he quietly pulled out his journal and a quill, fighting with the ink well to get enough on the end of the feather so that he could jot down what he’d seen of the fauna of the sea. As he struggled to get enough light to write by, a sudden splashing noise jerked his head up and he lost his grip on the ink. The bottle tumbled down into an eddy and was lost forever. Sherlock didn’t have time to curse this, though - his sharp eyes had caught movement, and he tracked it with his head. There wasn’t anything different, except for the birds now awake and squawking unhappily, flapping their wings and muttering amongst themselves.

“Figures I’d lose my ink to nothing more than excitable birds. How mundane and irritating...” He trailed off as he caught a glimpse of something out of the corner of his eye - movement, and not the birds, either. He dared to creep forward to get a better look, and his breath stopped in his chest as something broke the surface of the pool. The birds rose with a tremendous racket, screeches echoing off the walls and feathers flying every which way. But that didn’t bother Sherlock. He was too focused on the ringing laughter and the head of blond hair that was now bobbing along the water’s surface.

“Oh, come off it, birdies! Haven’t you seen me before? I recognise a couple of you from last summer, don’t you remember me?” The little boy in the water - wasn’t he cold? - splashed and laughed, and Sherlock glimpsed bright blue eyes and an easy smile. The boy was happy and having fun tormenting the birds. Sherlock could feel the beginnings of a smile teasing at his own lips, and he gave in to it for a moment until the logical part of his mind took over. Wasn’t it too late for a boy like this one to be out on his own? Where were his parents? And why was he playing so close to the sea like this? Didn’t he know how dangerous it was? If he didn’t time it right, he’d get caught in the tide and washed out to sea, and then what would happen to him? He’d get eaten by sharks, or killed by the tide, or even just drown.

“Hey, aren’t you supposed to be home?” Sherlock called out.

“WHA?” The boy jerked in horror and surprise, and ducked under the water once more. Sherlock inched further forward, ducking under the mass exodus of the flock of seabirds.

“Darn it.” Sherlock winced. He hadn’t meant to scare the boy. Oh well. He blinked and waited for him to come back to the surface.

The boy didn’t.

“Hey!” Sherlock called. “I didn’t mean to intrude, or to scare you. Come back!”

Still, the boy didn’t.

“I’m sorry!” Sherlock tried again, and now he was starting to get a little worried. The boy had been under water for quite some time, now, longer than he could hold his own breath, and he was a really good swimmer. Really good. “Please come back?” He scooted to the edge of the pool and looked down.

Nothing.

Tears sprung to Sherlock’s eyes, and he wiped them with the cuff of his coat. “I scared him so bad I made him hide, and now he’s dead because of me. He probably hit his head on a rock. Or couldn’t hold his breath -”

“Hi!”

Sherlock screamed and slipped on his rock, falling headfirst into the brackish water at his feet. The birds that had resettled after his announcement to the blond boy screeched and took flight once more. The water wasn’t that deep but it was cold, very cold, and he had to fight to get his senses back and swim the direction the bubbles from his clothes were going. His head broke the surface, and he sputtered and wiped his sopping wet hair out of his eyes so that he could glare at the boy, who had apparently snuck around behind him while he’d been worrying at the edge of the pool. “Why did you do that?” He scowled at the smiling boy.

“Do what? There’s a tunnel leading out here, at the bottom. Try it, it’s fun! It’s like a slide.” The boy shrugged. “You scared me, so I hid. But you aren’t scary anymore. I was watching you. You were worried about me, I like that. You are nice.” The boy’s voice carried through the cavernous place, bright and happy. Sherlock tried to scowl more, but instead his lips curved upwards into a smile at the boy’s exuberance.

“You didn’t answer my earlier question.”

The boy cocked his head. “This is my home.” He looked around. “I was hatched here.”

Sherlock planted his cold hands on the rock and levered himself out of the water. It streamed from his coat and his cutlass, and sloshed around in his boots when he got them up on the rock again. He patted himself down, making sure everything was still on his person. Finally, the words worked their way through his mind, and he stared at the boy. “You...were hatched? How were you hatched? Little boys aren’t hatched, they are born. My brother said that a woman and man ‘make love’ and then a child grows in the woman’s belly. Not in her stomach, mind you, but a different part. And then they are born, like I was. You don’t get ‘hatched’.”

The boy blinked. “But I was! My brothers and sisters were, too. We were in eggs. Mum put us all in the water here to keep us safe, and then went off somewhere. Don’t think she’ll be back, either.” His pale face turned sad for a moment. “I don’t know where everyone else went. Harry went off to sea a while ago with her special friend Clara.” He smiled. “My name is John! What’s yours?”

Sherlock smiled even more at this boy’s apparent silliness. “Sherlock Holmes. I’m a pirate.”

“Ooh, a pirate!” John clapped his hands, and Sherlock realised the boy was still bobbing in the water, just on the other side now. “Exciting! I bet it’s fun to be a pirate!” He pushed himself through the water to the rock’s edge and set his arms on the slimy surface. Sherlock noticed that his skin had a mottled look to it, like it couldn’t decide what colour it wanted to be. Mostly tan and light, light brown. Lots of sun, then. "Bet you find a lot of gold and stuff, yeah?"

“Sometimes. Aren’t you cold? Why don’t you get out of the water?”

John smiled a little tentatively. "I'm fine."

"No, come on out!" Sherlock waved at him. "I'm not going to hurt you. I'm not that kind of pirate."

"Um...alright." John sighed, and levered himself up and out of the water.

Sherlock almost fell back into the water, but he stayed his outward reaction to what had to be an impossibility. It just had to be. Because no boy he’d ever seen in his ten years ever. _Ever_. Had tentacles where his legs were supposed to be. Eight tan and brown tentacles, blue and black circles scattered over them. The circles were almost pulsating. Perfectly working tentacles. The boy - John - was essentially naked as the day he was...well, _hatched_ , Sherlock thought numbly. He really was hatched, then. He was well aware that his jaw hung open, but he was afraid to close it, lest something came out of it. John’s smile slowly faded, replaced by an embarrassed and somewhat discomfited stare.

“I...I’m sorry. I don’t mean to scare you. I’ll go away now.” He made to slide backwards, and Sherlock suddenly didn’t give two figs about what came out of his mouth. He snapped his jaw shut and shook himself out of his shock.

“I suppose you were hatched, then.” Sherlock murmured. Louder now - “Don’t go. You are fascinating. I’ve...never seen someone like you before.”

John stopped, weary and sad expressions fighting for dominance on his face. “I suppose not. Um...there aren’t many of us left, I guess.” He didn’t go any further, but he didn’t return to his original spot, so Sherlock went to him.

“You...you are part octopus. Blue ringed, if the books are right. Can I touch your skin? Are you slimy? What do you smell like? What do I smell like to you? Can you smell? Can you smell underwater? Can you actually breathe underwater?” Sherlock’s poor brain wanted to know all the answers to this seemingly impossible but most definitely real creature, and they all seemed to tumble out of his mouth in a rush. As he closed his mouth, he watched John’s face light up with glee, which made him happy, so impossibly happy. He’d made this boy happy again, and that made him feel good. Not many people liked him, called him precocious and too smart for his own good. John made him feel...something else. Especially when he started laughing.

“Oh, Pirate Sherlock of the High Seas, you have a lot of questions! Um...I guess you can. Touch, I mean. Yeah.” He held out his hand, but Sherlock shook his head.

“No, your tentacle. I want to touch your tentacle.”

“Oh.” John blushed. “I...guess you can. Um. That's not really done, but I suppose it's alright...” He shifted where he sat and reached out with one of his front tentacles, and Sherlock lightly brushed a finger over the skin.

“Ah. Cold. You are cold.” Sherlock scrambled to his feet, making John jerk in surprise.

“Where are you going?”

“A blanket!” Sherlock jumped into his boat and yanked out the brown blanket out of his satchel. He made his way onto the rock again and dropped the fabric around John’s shoulders. “You are cold to the touch. I don’t want you to catch ill.”

“Oh, it’s okay.” John smiled. “I’m fine, I’m always cold like that. Well, my tentacles are. Everything else is warm. See?” He reached out his hand again and grabbed Sherlock’s. And his hand was warm, indeed. Not so much his little fingers, but his palm, the back of his hand, even his wrist and arm when Sherlock reached out to take it into his other hand.

“You are. That is interesting.” Sherlock blinked, his mind running at full tilt, making him a little dizzy. He leaned forward and sniffed, making John giggle. “You smell...well, like a fish.”

“Hey!” The smile on John’s face softened the sharp bark.

“But there’s something else. Something...woody, like smoke. I like it.” Sherlock scooted closer, until they were hip to hip. He could feel the powerful muscles that controlled John’s tentacles. “What do I smell like?”

“If we are being honest -”

“We are!” Sherlock sputtered.

“Yes, alright, okay. You smell like...” John pressed his face against Sherlock’s coat. “Um. You smell like smoke too, I think. Sea. You smell like waves and algae. Food. Um, no, that’s not the word, you are not food, no. Um. Salt. You smell like a fish, too, which is why I said food, and I’m sorry, but you do.”

“Must be the water. We were both in it, and it -” Sherlock leaned out and scooped a handful of water and brought it to his face. “Yes, it’s brackish and rather stale. Does this pool get fed with the tide?”

John cocked his head. “Yes. I believe so. I usually leave before it does, though.”

“I’d like to stay here with you until the tide comes in. You see, my boat is stuck on that shoal. I’m not big enough to push it out. I think the water would do that for me.” Sherlock smiled. “If it’s alright. I’d like to talk some more about you and your kind.”

John nodded. “Alright.”

  
  
  
  


They stayed like that, talking long into the night, until the water started to rise. Sherlock’s new friend helped him pull the boat until it was loose, then followed him out to sea again. Just before he reached Mycroft’s ship, he turned and waved at John.

The little octopus boy waved back, grinned, and disappeared beneath the water.

Of course, Mycroft and Lestrade were waiting for him when he finally got the rowboat lashed to the side of the much larger ship. He definitely got an earful, and mopping duty for a month, but it was entirely worth it to have discovered John.

 


End file.
